Spotlight was an American premium cable television network that was founded by the Times Mirror Satellite Programming Company unit of the Times Mirror Company, and owned as a joint venture with Storer Communications, Cox Cable and Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI).

Although it was intended to act as a direct competitor to existing movie-focused premium channels Cinemax, The Movie Channel and Home Theater Network, Spotlight was primarily developed to compete with dominant pay cable service HBO, which – like Spotlight – was owned by a media company with cable system interests, as parent company Time Inc. had owned the American Television & Communications Corp. (eventually integrated into Time Warner Cable and later Charter), the second-largest American cable television provider at the time (format-wise, HBO's programming contrasted from Spotlight, with a general interest format that mixed movies with specials and some limited original series within its lineup).

It was initially available primarily on cable systems operated by Times-Mirror's Dimension Cable Television unit; Dimension originally planned to replace HBO with Spotlight on most of the provider's 51 systems nationwide, although it would instead replace competing general interest service Showtime throughout most of its service areas.

[3][4] In December 1981, Times-Mirror sold minority interests in the channel to Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), Cox Cable and Storer Communications; the three companies, then also among the nation's largest cable providers, mainly served as investors in Spotlight and added the channel to their respective systems; Times-Mirror remained managing partner, handling business and programming operations.

Singer Robert Goulet served as Spotlight's initial on-air spokesperson, appearing in some of its early promotional imaging campaigns, and also hosted the channel's launch.